Turn off Your Fear and Turn On Your Love!

I was sitting in my car, waiting to go to my very first class of my chiropractic college career. I was so nervous and scared, because I didn’t know what to expect.

I just remember sitting there in my seat, staring at two breakfast bars that I had brought along, trying to choke one down without much success.

I felt so alone.

My roommate was nice enough to show me the way from our apartment to the school, but then he was off to work. Everyone else, including my soon-to-be-fiancee, was about a three hours’ drive away.

I felt I had nobody to go to in a time when I needed someone the most.

When the time came for the start of class, I walked into the large lecture hall. It was filled with other students who were in the same boat as I was. I am sure everyone was nervous to some degree, but I just felt overwhelmed, anxious, and unsure.

I thought as time would pass, and as I got into the swing of things at school, that I would feel better and start to experience some success.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I failed my first exam. I failed it miserably. It might as well have been written in a foreign language, because I really didn’t understand anything I was being asked on that test.

I didn’t know how to study; I thought that no matter what I did I just was met with failure.

And that was just my academic life. It seemed that everything else wasn’t working for me either. I had no confidence in myself. I was always unsure. I asked myself over and over again why it was that others seemed to be succeeding in so many different areas while I endured struggle after struggle.

Worst of all, I didn’t see any potential escape from my misery and failures.

I was depressed, scared, overweight, and just plain miserable. I was failing out of school, and I was failing in life. Then, one day, out of the blue, I was struck by this single moment of motivation.

It was as if this voice said to me, “Victor, you’ve got to get up. You’ve got to get moving. You can’t live this way anymore. You’ve got to do something with yourself.”

I stood up, went to the kitchen, grabbed a phone book, and called a gym that was close to my residence. I went there and signed up for a year’s membership and started exercising. I also started to modify my diet, and I started to lose weight.

One year later, I had lost over seventy pounds, and I felt awesome — Inside and out. I was bubbling with confidence in myself. My grades dramatically improved.

Life was grand.

Success was everywhere I looked, and I didn’t even have to try. I graduated about a year and a half later as a Doctor of Chiropractic. I couldn’t believe it!

So you may be wondering what happened to me. You may be wondering how I turned it around. Those are great questions, and to be honest, until not too long ago, I wouldn’t have a good answer for you.

Fortunately, I have been able to wrap my mind around a plausible explanation for what happened to me…

I began to believe. I began to believe that I mattered, and I began to believe in myself in general. I began to choose. I began to recognize that life is full of choices.

I realized that I was letting my life path define who I was, instead of letting who I was define my life path.

You see, when I allowed myself to be full of fear, I resonated with fear. It’s kind of like tuning into a radio station. You can only hear what’s playing on the station you’re tuned into.

I was “listening” to the “fear station,” and that’s all I could hear, and that’s all my life was. My life was everything that resonated with fear: failure, misery, depression, anxiety, and so forth.

Once I started believing in myself, and once I took ownership of my life, I realized that there was another option. I had the ability to choose to listen to a different “station.”

As soon as I started to see that my efforts to lose weight were working, I realized that I could succeed at something, and it planted the seeds of success in other areas in my life. I started to listen to the “love” station, and I started to love myself, and love life in the process.

That’s all I could hear, and that’s all my life was. My life was everything that resonated with love: success, happiness, abundance, and so forth.

Fear can be a paralyzer.

When we believe that we are powerless to life — when we believe that our life path has been laid out before us and we have no choice but to walk along it — that’s when we allow ourselves to be anxious about where that road leads us.

When we can choose to take control — when we can realize that we are in control of our life and we establish our life path — that’s when we can step into our own power and defeat fear and everything that resonates with it.

What station are you “listening” to? Are you “listening” to the fear station, and therefore all you hear is fear-based programming? Can you make that switch?

Can you raise your vibration and tune into that “love station?” Can you realize the power you possess when you can come to love yourself and those around you? If we can learn to tune into the empowering station of “love” on our “radio,” we can enhance our relationships with ourselves and those around us.

Give love a chance.

Give yourself a chance. Just believe. Believe in love. Believe in yourself. To defeat the fear within, we just need to begin to believe.

Dr. Victor Schueller is the "Professor of Positivity and Possibility." As a coach, speaker, and author, Victor helps people learn how to deal with life's tough situations to find inner peace. Victor is an award-winning blogger and hosts his own radio show, “Positively Empowered Radio.” He lives in Kiel, Wisconsin with his wife and two daughters. To get your free copy of Victor’s audiobook, Mediocre No More, or to find out more about Victor, please visit his website, www.VictorSchueller.com.

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It’s crazy how much of a difference it can make in our lives when we finally decide to not take it anymore, tune out “the fear channel”, and take that first small step towards the future we truly want.

This post reminds me of Napoleon Hill’s quote: “Our only limitations are those we set up in our own minds”.

Thanks for sharing your honest and inspiring story, Victor! 🙂

TessOctober 21, 2013, 1:06 pm

Hi Patrik,

I’m not going to take it anymore, came about 5 years ago when I quit listening or reading negative media. No limitations in my mind allowed;))

I can’t tell you how timely this is for me to read today. Just now having gotten off a call with a friend wondering when my life fell apart and how I got to where I am…when all the areas of my life were working…and I’d never been happier…or healthier..and then suddenly..it wasn’t like that anymore.

Standing here..in this space of uncertainty is scary/hard/challenging/uncomfortable, and yet…if the first step is believing..I think I can do that.

TessOctober 22, 2013, 2:10 pm

Rita,
Yes you can do that! It’s OK to grieve your losses. When you’re finished think about what lessons you can learn from your experiences. Then move on! I know you can do it. I have all the faith in the world in you. xo